Automated electrical cable making machines typically payout wire from a so-called, endless source, measure and cut the wire to form a wire segment, optionally attach appropriate terminals to one or both ends of the wire segment, and optionally insert one or both ends into a connector housing. Such automated machines are designed to work with either ribbon cable or discrete wires. The need for more sophisticated electrical cables has resulted in correspondingly more complex automated machinery for making these cables. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,566,164 which issued Jan. 28, 1986 to Brown et al.; 4,653,160 which issued Mar. 31, 1987 to Thorkildsen et al.; 4,647,323 which issued Mar. 3, 1987 to Darstein et al.; and 4,593,452 which issued June 10, 1986 to Keakey et al., all disclose automated cable making machines of this type. As more complex cable assemblies are made which may have several different connectors attached thereto, it becomes desirable to uniquely identify these different connectors to facilitate subsequent assembly of the cable to its host apparatus and for identifying different cable assemblies and branch circuits.
What is needed is an automated system for identifying such connectors during the manufacture of the cable assembly. A commercially available hot stamp marking machine may be utilized, such as the machine model MF-4W manufactured by Ackerman Gould Co. Inc. of 125 Wilbur Place, Bohemia, N.Y. 11716-2400. However, this machine has no capability for automated indexing of the print wheels. The present invention addressed this problem by providing a unique method of automatically setting the print wheels to a desired set of print characters.